YouTube Indicates What the Future is For Audiophiles - Interesting Demographics.

This has always been a vastly male dominated hobby. That's not a problem IMO, and it's unnatural to try and force otherwise. The age problem is extremely concerning, though it's not like this hasn't been telegraphed for ages. Other cultures (especially Asians) seem to have less of a problem here. The hifi headphone segment has less of a problem too, but it's somewhat surprising / concerning this hasn't become a pipeline into traditional 2ch audiophilia. 

I'm mid-40s and originally bridged over to 2ch from headphones 20 years ago. If I were getting into the hobby today, I'd be extremely put off by the disparity of having to choose between amazing but now incredibly unaffordable gear made in USA / Japan / Europe, versus cheap mass-produced ChiFi (some of which is not so cheap anymore!). Where'd the "great stuff" in the middle go? The industry seems increasingly dominated by these 2 poles. 

Almost, as if by rote, these topics come up. Someone needs to do a study on how many times it’s done by this male dominated hobby and figure out if it’s a slow motion death knell of sorts. The last gasps of a dying herd as we flail on the shore, beached, unable to get back into audiophile waters.

All the best,
Nonoise

Audiophile audio dying out will be one of the lesser problems future generations will have to deal with.

It’d be nice if the kids enjoyed music like we do, but they don’t. One thing we can do is try to get our music collections into the hands of someone younger who does like to sit and listen to music rather than having it hauled to the dump when our time is up.

Audiophile audio dying out will be one of the lesser problems future generations will have to deal with.

very true. We made such a mess, it will take a lot of geniuses to fix it. 

You're absolutely right!!!  High end audio, audiophiles, those of us ages approx. 45-85, and the overall high end audio industry are, in fact, a dying bread.  There's a couple of principle factors, IMHO, that are contributing to the decline.  #1-The music.  The decline of todays music industry as a whole (the decline of the quality of the music).  When Baby Boomers and Generation X were coming along during the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's, the music industry was on a whole other level than what it is today.  Listening to your favorite brand of music back in those days was more like a religious experience, which inspire the young to purchase full blown starter audio systems.  And those young music lovers later became high end audio purchasers as they grew older and more successful and were able to afford it.  The dichotomy between the young (who are the future of high end audio) and how contemporary music inspires them, and also how todays music inspires them to evolve into high end audiophiles, has been on the declining for over 30 years.  #2- The high end audio industry:  Well, I guess the principles of cause and effect have cornered and forced the high end audio industry to pretty much abandon the young, who seem to have very little interest in high end audio, who primarily listen to their music via streaming it through cheap headphones.  In facing todays reality regarding the high end, the high end audio industry recognizes that the future of the high end audio industry as a whole is in jeopardy, and have now decided to market their wares almost exclusively to us old, grey haired, senior citizen audiophiles who still love our good old turn tables, reel to reel players and CD players, which represent our heyday, and how things were when we were young.  To the young, all the old mediums are merely old relics of the past that are from a bygone era.  The high end audio industry makes no effort to capture the imagination of the young and has become somewhat of an excusive club for the more well heeled, middle aged and beyond audiophile who're willing to spend 50K, Lol, on a turn table, or 250K on a pair of speakers.  No, the young, the future of high end audio, aren't interested.  In any event, honestly, although, nowadays, I stream exclusively, I wish that all the old mediums from the past: CD, reel to reel, cassette, turn tables, and even 8 track, would make a huge comeback, and would also somehow start to resonate with the young on a much higher level, just to see the high end audio industry return to it's former glory!!!!  Happy listening.